At Last (The Idle Point, Maine Stories)(95)

"Seeing you and Noah together took me back a lot of years," Doctor Jim said. "I always hoped you would end up together."

"So did I," Gracie said with a soft laugh.

"So what's stopping you? I saw the way you looked at each other over Rachel's turkey. It's clear nothing has changed."

"A lot has changed, Doctor Jim."

"Nothing essential."

She had to stop this now before it went too far. "I'm hoping we can find a way to be friends again."

"And that's your polite way of telling me to mind my own business."

"I'd never tell you that."

"No," he said with a smile. "You wouldn't but I'll do it just the same."

They stood together in silence for a few minutes, watching the sun slide behind the hills.

"There's a place for you here, Gracie," he said as they hugged goodbye. "I meant what I said at the dinner table."

"I know you did," she said, "and I love you for it."

She lingered a few moments more than stepped back into the house where Laquita found her a second later.

"Your father's getting tired," Laquita said, "and I'm working midnight shift. If you don't mind, I think it's time to head home."

Gracie hesitated. She had finally worked up the nerve to tell Noah what had happened the day she left him and the right moment kept slipping between her fingers. "Why don't you two go ahead without me." She told Laquita about Sophie and the injured bird. "I think I'll stay and see if Sophie wants to talk."

"How will you get home?"

"I hadn't thought of that."

Laquita pulled her car keys from the pocket of her bright red down jacket. "Here," she said. "Use my car."

"What about you and Dad?"

"I have ten siblings," she said with a grin. "If I can't bum a ride off one of them, it's a sorry world."

Gracie thanked her then Laquita rushed off to find someone to drive her and Ben home. That was part of being a family, this kind of give and take. Here, take my car... hey, how about a ride down to the corner... it's cold... you'd better borrow my sweater... do you remember when we used to...

She could have that and more if she moved back to Idle Point. It was there for the taking, almost everything she had ever wanted from life. A big loud loving family, even if most of them were imported by marriage. A relationship with her father. The chance to work with Doctor Jim. She could even have Noah in her life—and Sophie, too—although not in the way she had always dreamed. All she had to do was say the word and it was hers.

"Do you know where Noah is?" she asked Rachel who was putting away the last of the dishes.

"He was looking for you," Rachel said, closing the glass doors to the china cabinet. "Sophie wants you to give her a bath."

Second floor, third door on the left.

Gracie flew up the stairs. The signs were all there. She had motive and she had opportunity. She was tired of living only half a life and she wished for more for Sophie and Noah. This wasn't the happy ending she had dreamed about but it was more than she had believed possible these last eight years. Tell him tonight. Tell him before you leave this house. They couldn't be lovers but they could be part of each other's lives. She could be his friend, grow old with him, watch Sophie grow up. And even though it hurt more than she sometimes believed possible, it was so much better than being without him.

She tapped on the door to Sophie's room. "I hear somebody needs a bath," she called out.

"C'mon in," Noah shouted from inside the room. "You're not a minute too soon."

She opened the door and stepped into the bedroom she wished she'd had as a little girl. Open and airy. Pink and white. A window seat. A nightstand piled high with Madeleine and Harry Potter and the Complete Dr. Seuss. Paradise!

Sophie, naked and highly annoyed, stood in the middle of the room.

Noah, fully clothed and completely at a loss, sat on the edge of her bed.

They both looked toward Gracie as if she were the answer to their prayers.

"Barbie's Dream House!" Gracie couldn't believe her eyes. There it was in all of its plastic pre-fab glory to the left of the window seat. "Sophie, you have Barbie's Dream House!" She knelt down in front of the pricey piece of real estate and admired each detail.